Olympian to Entrepreneur: Lisa Weagle’s Winning Legacy in Sport and Business with support from Smith School of Business
Olympian. Business owner. Leader. Mentor. These are just a few of the hats that Lisa Weagle wears.
Weagle fell in love with curling at age eight. That passion has taken her to two Olympic Games and earned her medals at three Curling World Championships. Along the way, Weagle has had to learn to balance her sporting goals with her non-sporting ones, and with help from Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, she was ultimately able to marry these goals.
But before all that, Weagle graduated in 2008 with a degree in communications and began working for Sport Canada.
“It was the perfect job in government for me, but it got to the point where I didn’t feel like I could do everything. I was working full time and curling full time, and I just felt like I needed to go all-in on curling,” Weagle said.
So she took a leave of absence from her job to focus solely on curling. Going all-in paid off. In 2017, her team won the Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, and the World Curling Championships.
Despite her sporting successes, Weagle missed having a non-sport focus to balance things out. So she applied to the Certificate in Business offered by Smith via Game Plan, Canada’s Total Athlete Wellness Program. She completed the program in 2020.
“When I did re-enter the workplace, I wanted to have updated my skills and kept sharp,” Weagle explains. “What I didn’t realize was how much I would really enjoy going back to school.”
Weagle didn’t register for the Smith program with a specific post-sport career plan in mind. With a true athlete’s attitude, going back to school was in part motivated by a belief that “it’s good to do something difficult and practice having perseverance.”
The six courses she took reiterated to Weagle that she was well-suited to a career in marketing and communications. But the classes also reminded her of how much had changed since she finished her undergrad. For example, she learned about the tectonic shift that social media has created within the marketing and communications strategies of organizations. In other areas, like accounting, where she had less experience, Smith provided foundational knowledge to use in her career.
Within the last year, Weagle has made the ultimate leap to combine her love of curling with her skills as a professional communicator, founding the Lisa Weagle Curling Academy. The idea of the academy sprung from a conversation with a mentor – which is fitting since mentorship is at the core of this endeavour.
“Throughout my career, I’ve had some incredible coaches who have taught me so much. I really wanted to give some of that back and pass that on to youth in particular,” Weagle says.
So, once again, she left her day job–this time at a communications agency–to go all-in on sport. But this time it was not as an athlete, but as a business owner.
The academy has experienced success, selling out its first iterations of the program, which currently take place at the Manotick Curling Centre in Ottawa. Weagle is already strategizing on how to expand offerings.
“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at the time I took the Smith program, but it really did lay the foundation for me to understand key concepts and have more confidence when starting my own business,” she says. “I don’t think I’m an expert in any of those areas, but I have the confidence to know I can figure things out. I also have the understanding that there are people I can reach out to for help.”
This message – understanding that it’s a strength to ask others for help – along with Weagle’s entrenched values of mentorship and education, are part of what makes her such a great fit for another leadership role that she has taken on: Chef de Mission for the Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympic Games. The Youth Olympic Games are taking place January 19 – February 1.
READ: Meet Team Canada for the Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games
Weagle has a 360-degree view of multi-sport games, having attended the PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022 Olympic Games as an athlete, as well as the London 2012 Paralympic Games as part of Sport Canada’s delegation.
The job of the Chef de Mission is to guide Team Canada, providing mentorship and support.
“I just want to connect with the athletes,” Weagle says. “For many of them, this will be their first major games and really big international experience. I didn’t get to have those experiences when I was a junior.”
Weagle’s commitment to ongoing education and her time at Smith School of Business have also influenced her attitude as Chef de Mission: “I think the message I’ve been trying to convey as Chef de Mission is to encourage these athletes to set goals for themselves that aren’t solely related to outcomes within their sport. There’s a big education component of the Youth Olympic Games, so I’m encouraging them to take part in that.”
Weagle knows the ups and downs of life as an athlete and the importance of having the open ear of a mentor. It’s part of the reason she started the academy.
“I’m looking forward to connecting with the athletes, hearing their stories and cheering them on. And I also want to be there for them if things don’t go their way, because that’s been a part of my story too.”